Myself and Ian took the French and Russ / John took the Hessians. Essentially the battle was a sideshow to the main event where the Hessians were trying to hold up the French and protect the flanks of their allies.
The objectives were simple - for the French it was to cut the road (major victory), take the village (minor victory) or crush the Hessians into the dirt (medals and titles all round).
For the Hessians, stopping the French from achieving their objectives and not dying were the order of the day.
The Hessians set up first and found they were quite stretched between the village and the road and so would be hard pressed to cover both objectives. They basically threw a thin line across and stuck their Jagers in the farm to make it harder to contest.
Given that cutting the road was a key objective, we decided to put the main force down the road and aim to win there. To cover the flanks, the cavalry and the cannons (one large, one medium) moved up to support the main action by threatening any advance from the village and shooting up the Hessian line before our infantry engaged.
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| The village - before deployment. |
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| The lines converge. Note the Hessians anchoring themselves on the road. |
The cannons got within range and set up to fire. As the Hessians had no artillery and little incentive to come forward, they pretty much had to stand and take it. But time was on their side - this battle had a time limit and we had to achieve something before the sun went down.
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| The French infantry roll down the road. In the distance our skirmishers sneak into the woods. |
Meanwhile the cannons were emplaced and started blatting holes in the enemy lines with nothing coming back the other way. An easy victory seemed assured.
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| Boom! Boom! Boom! |
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| Russ and John look worried. The tape measure is just for show - they're going nowhere! |
Russ got his revenge for getting shot at by nicking the bag of Doritos that was the only sustenance I'd had that day and despite his claims that he was a) not hungry and b) watching his weight proceeded to reduce the contents of the bag to air and crumbs within 2 minutes.
Such action had to be punished, and as the French got within musketry distance we were confident that we would soon be digging Hessian graves. We should have known. Ian and myself are renowned as the worst dice throwers in Christendom, and so it proved.
To explain, when inflicting damage in POW, a d6 is thrown and reference made to a table to see what damage has been done. The requirement is to roll high - especially when you've got lots of troops firing. 1 is therefore really bad. So it didn't help that Ian simply rolled a succession of 1's for damage, meaning that the Hessians were hit with harsh language and not much else. In return, Russ had his Mordor Dice (he's bought some metal dice that land on the table and don't move, much like the One Ring in Lord of the Rings). Dropping the d6 from heights that varied from 1cm to 1.2cm, he managed to roll a variety of numbers ranging from 5 to 6 and therefore tore ragged holes in our ranks.
Damage in POW leads to a morale test. Opposite to damage, with a morale test you have to roll low on a d20. So 1 is excellent, anything over 15 is bad and a 20 is always, always disasterous. Bear this in mind as you read on.
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| The French can't his a barn door, while the Hessians can shoot with their eyes shut... |
Still the lines blatted at each other and I moved the medium cannon closer to add its firepower to the mix. Not that it did much good. But even a succession of 1's by Ian meant that some damage was being inflicted and the rightmost Hessian unit was coming under constant fire from front and side and morale checks were being forced. Not that it mattered as the Mordor d20 was producing numbers that were staggering for their consistency - nothing over '5' seemed to be the order of the day.
The slog continued - I manouvered my cavalry a bit to protect the right flank and the Hessian cavalry moved to their right flank to exploit any Shaken markers by charging into the disrupted troops.
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| The Hessian cavalry move up on their right (our left). |
There was not much finesse - although the French skirmishers were making a nuisance of themselves in the wood.
It was at this point that I had to pull Shakespeare up for trying it on again - despite the fact that he wasn't there. This would have been the point that he'd try something reckless and stretch the rules in consequence so I'm calling him for it.
The time limit was ticking away and we felt we had to press somehow. As the Hessians were starting to crumble (despite Ian's '1's) I could see an opportunity. I rolled the medium cannon forward again to join its firepower to that of the infantry. This should mean that even with another '1' we could inflict enough damage to force a cohesion test and - if they went shaken, I could roll the cavalry in and demolish the Hessian centre.
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| French cavalry get ready to pounce. |
More shooting and charges / countercharges took place. Cohesion tests, melees and cavalry charges took place. John managed (after a couple of unsuccessful attempts) to charge his cavalry into the French line and inflicted heavy casualties.
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| The Hessian cavalry get stuck in. |
To guarantee an effective charge, I attached the C in C and prepared for a glorious victory. The muskets and cannon roared, casualties were taken on the Hessian side and they went Shaken. In rode the cavalry....
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| The perfect position - exposed flank, cannon in position, cavalry riding in to smash the centre and win the battle |
....except they didn't! I rolled to see if they would ride in and - rolled a 20! Not only did they not go in, they retired, shaken. Its one of those situations where you curse the fickle nature of dice. Just about any other result would have seen the Hessians swept away. But no, that 5% chance came and our plan comes to nothing.
To add insult to injury, in the attempt to rally the cavalry and position them for another attempt, the C in C got shot! To add insult to injury, the morale check led to another 20 roll! Already Shaken, they ran for the hills.
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| The Hessian cavalry break through as ours runs for the hills. |
I lined up my remaining cavalry to take on the Jagers who'd shot our C in C. Another roll to see if they go in....and ANOTHER BLOODY 20!. Again, the cavalry fail to engage and run away with their tails between their legs.
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| Haven't we seen this before? |
Three throws on three separate dice had killed off our chances of crushing the Hessians. Much chuckling from the other side of the table - I decided to plunder Ian's bookcase instead and borrowed a couple of his WW2 books to help my painting schemes for my assorted armour. I was clearly doing nothing to contribute to victory on the field.
That was left to Ian, who had brought numbers to bear on the left flank. As the sun set, he managed to sneak the skirmishers across the road and held on while the Hessians struggled to meet all the threats to their line. Indeed, by this stage (Jagers aside) they represented Custer's Last Stand as they had the Frech on 3 sides and the road to safety was cut.
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| Hessians in trouble. |
As we (by which I mean Ian) had cut the road and prevented escape, this represented a major victory.
Review
This should have been an easy victory for the French. Superior forces and a choice of objectives meant that the Hessians were split, which should have meant taking each out piecemeal.
However good the tactics though, the dice had a big impact - in terms of damage inflicted and morale tests failed.
Tactically, we dicsussed whether the Hessian Jagers should have held the wood to the side of the road and protected the flank. This would have protected the road. Placing the other Jagers in the village would have made both objectives secure (as they'd have been hard to winkle out) but would have left the Hessian left flank wide open.
To be fair to the Hessians, they punhed above their weight, gave a good account of themselves and were within 1 turn of meeting their objectives.
Overall, great fun - except for those 3 lots of 20's!